BIOSCIENCE BOON

Renovated and expanded Spaulding Hall fully ready to welcome students

As part of COLSA’s commitment to our students and faculty and our mission to enhance lives and livelihoods in New Hampshire and beyond, in the summer of 2019 the university broke ground on the Spaulding Biosciences Project, a $95.5 million endeavor that included a 47,000-square-foot addition to Spaulding Hall followed by a full renovation of the original 83,000-square-foot building. This major project was completed in June 2024.

Biological science research can lay claim to many of the 20th and 21st centuries’ most important scientific achievements: antibiotics, widespread use of vaccines, recombinant DNA, stem cells, and the sequencing of the human genome, to name a few. Looking ahead to a future shaped by increasingly complex global health and environmental challenges, we will continue to depend on bioscience research for the breakthroughs that protect and enhance our quality of life.

In recognition of this reality, COLSA is continuously investing in both our faculty’s capacity to do high-impact research and our students’ access to leading-edge technology and meaningful, real-world skill building. The work undertaken by COLSA faculty and graduates in the biological sciences

makes significant contributions in many areas, including human and animal health, research, environmental management and conservation, agriculture, biotechnology, business and industry, education, and politics and policy.

Now, Spaulding Hall not only provides a wide range of stateof-the-art spaces for advanced teaching and research, it also ably supports two of the College’s central goals: expanding internship and research partnerships with the public and private sectors in New Hampshire and the continued development of a strong workforce pipeline that both prioritizes student goals and meets the growing demands for expertise in the life sciences across the state and region.

“The renovation and expansion of Spaulding Hall presents a tremendous opportunity for our students and faculty to continue to grow their impact,” says Anthony S. Davis, dean of the college. “The intellectual horsepower across our community will take these expanded and upgraded labs and classrooms and put them to use in addressing the contemporary critical questions that face society, from human well-being through ecosystem health and everything in between.”

A few of Spaulding Hall’s notable features:

• Specialized research neighborhoods that foster seamless collaboration among faculty and students, support the specific needs of different types of research and encourage equipment sharing to reduce the building’s energy footprint

• An aquatic research core supported by both freshwater and saltwater laboratories that include giant tanks and living streams

• A bioreactor core facility designed to carry out work with mammalian cell cultures vital for microbiology and biochemistry

• State-of-the-art teaching labs to ensure students are ready for the modern workforce

• A dedicated autoclave and glass wash facility for the sterilization of supplies used in teaching and research laboratories

• Freezer farms throughout the building offering ultra-low cold storage units that support the preservation of cell lines

• Large breakout and study spaces for individual and group study

• Co-located area for the UNH natural history collections